1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system and a method for testing electronic device performance.
2. Background Art
Electronic test equipment is often specific to the particular target device. As such, a technician (i.e., user) testing devices designed by different manufacturers must possess at least one test device (i.e., unit, module, box, etc.) for each manufacturer. In addition, the technician typically receives training to properly issue commands from the test equipment to the target (i.e., tested) device using the various manufacturer determined protocols. The plethora of additional equipment and training for technicians can cause employers of the users to incur great expense when testing services are expanded to include additional devices that are secured from theretofore unsupported manufacturers.
Similarly, as product lines evolve for the manufacturers, communication interface options also tend to evolve (e.g., a manufacturer may add serial ports to the equipment to be tested). As such, an additional test unit is typically purchased to take advantage of, for example, a newly added interface option and respective associated features.
One industry where such issues are becoming relevant is the set top box (STB) industry. A STB (i.e., decoder, receiver, tuner, transceiver) is a unit capable of receiving and decoding digital television (DTV) broadcasts (i.e., all formats of digital television, including high definition television (HDTV) and standard definition television (SDTV)). The STB typically converts and displays transmissions from one frequency or format (e.g., analog cable, digital cable, satellite broadcast, digital television, and the like) to a standard frequency (e.g., channel 3, channel 4, etc.) for display on a display device (e.g., television, monitor, and the like).
While STB manufacturers have incorporated some communication ports into STBs, conventional STB test devices are limited to communicating with STBs via infra-red (IR) wireless signals. Because the existing STB test devices are unable to communicate with STBs except via IR signals, the test devices are unable to take advantage of the additional features associated with the communication ports.
For example, the wireless infra-red communication is necessarily uni-directional (i.e., from the test device to the STB under test) due to the STBs inability to transmit infra-red signals. Because the existing test equipment is limited to infra-red communication, bi-directional communication remains unavailable even when a bi-directional port has been implemented into the STB. Because bi-directional communication is unavailable with conventional test equipment, complicated video capture and recognition techniques are used to determine when a test command has been received by the STB.
Similarly, the communication ports on STBs cannot be utilized to eliminate the problems associated with close proximity, and concurrent testing of STBs. Such problems arises due to the tendency of an infra-red wave to spread over distance.
Thus, it would be desirable to have a system and a method that would overcome the deficiencies of conventional test equipment.